"I see. I'm going to be honest, and I really hope this doesn't offend you, but I've never met someone in a wheelchair before. Anyone with disabilities always moved to Anadyr where it was easier to live with disabilities, so most Siberian towns don't have anyone who can't walk. So I don't know anything, really, about what you're going through or how your life works. I'm sorry. You'll have to teach me about that too, it seems. Maybe you can get part-time professor status at this rate," he adds in a poor attempt at a joke, hoping he hadn't just been horrifically offensive. But it was true - he'd even heard that some people paid people in Anadyr to look after their children, because they couldn't move the whole family there. It was one of those things that he had always known without ever truly understanding because it didn't apply to him or anyone on Ayon Island.

At the touch of the napkin, Ilya ends up chuckling at how juvenile they probably look. It's nice, to be able to act his age for once. And Dolemeck has a wonderful laugh. "How is this science?" he asks with a grin, but he's not objecting.